How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

            Although I have been doing Media Studies for several years and so am familiar with some of the technologies required to create media products, e.g. Adobe Photoshop, there were many new programmes and equipment this year that I had not used before. In the planning stages of my coursework, I used the website www.blogger.com to set up a blog where I documented the development of my coursework, continuing this process until I reached the stage where I handed my coursework in. On my blog I made regular text-based diary posts describing what I had been doing that week, as well as the occasional video and podcast. In conjunction with my blog, I used websites such as www.prezi.com, www.scribd.com and www.youtube.com to host various media that I could then embed in posts. My blog helped me become organised as it allowed me to keep all the development of my work in one place and I could ensure that I had posted everything by a specific date. I was also able to get both my peers and my teachers to regularly check my progress and give me feedback on how I was doing.

            When filming my music video, I used a Canon 550D camera with a cinematic shutter speed and 1.8 aperture lense. This allowed me to shoot in shallow focus, which gave my video a more professional feel. I also used two fill lights (and an extra two spotlights for the black-and-white narrative), which produced high-key lighting, helping to make my video more slick. I then placed the footage into an Adobe Premiere Pro document, where I cut all the clips together using the razor tool, added black and white effects on some clips, changed the speed and scale of some clips, and reversed some footage too. I also added split screens and inserted text and red background squares on different layers of my video. Once this stage was complete, I exported a draft version of my video and put this in Adobe After Effects, which I was not so familiar with. Here I was able to further edit the colours of my video with the use of filters that I downloaded, zoom in on specific shots, and remove blemishes of my models. To remove blemishes of my actors, I followed a tutorial I had found on www.videocopilot.net, which involved created a matte of the person’s skin, creating an adjustment layer which only affected the areas covered by this matte, and then reducing the noise of the image. This meant that details such as lips and eyes were left unchanged whilst the skin still blurred slightly.

            In terms of my digipack cover and magazine advert, I also used a Canon 550D camera to take the photos, and Adobe Photoshop to piece together the final products. For the advert, I edited the images I had chosen from my video footage into strips using the crop tool, adjusted the colours using the colour levels, and perfected the skin of my models using the blemish removal tool. I also made use of the internet at this stage as I used a font I had downloaded from www.refont.com, called Impact Label, for the album title and band name. For the digipack cover, I took photos using a Canon 550D and then edited the colours on Photoshop, and finally I added the text and logos. The inside of my digipack required the most Photoshop work of them all, as I made both sides from scratch. I used another tutorial that I had found and created the wood-textured background through curves and different layers of colour, and then added the text on one side and the speaker on the other, making use of highlights and shadows.

Media technologies did not just help me in my research, planning and production stages; it was also vital in helping me receive audience feedback too. As well as traditional feedback forms and ‘vox pop’ footage, I could also post my video on www.facebook.com, www.vimeo.com and www.youtube.com and record people’s comments. Displaying my video on a range of platforms allowed me to reach a variety of people that fitted in both my primary and secondary target audiences.